


the reverse vault au

by V_fics



Series: V's Best Enemies fics [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Non-Sexual Submission, Other, Post-Episode: s12e09 Ascension of the Cybermen, Unhealthy Relationships, Written Pre-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:47:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22929721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/V_fics/pseuds/V_fics
Summary: “I’m tired,” she says out loud. “I’m really, really tired.”Save my friends, she says intangibly,and I’ll stay with you. If you want me to.And the Master reaches out to the humans, and overrides their free will.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan & Graham O'Brien & Ryan Sinclair, Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Series: V's Best Enemies fics [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1998526
Comments: 24
Kudos: 212





	the reverse vault au

**Author's Note:**

> ~~spoilers for several of the promotional shots for the finale but otherwise we got like zero actual finale plot going on~~
> 
> **Edit 3/3/20:** I saw the finale and there be some lore spoilers but nothing else matches up with it besides the light cage image because I'm sad and need them to be okay.

She punches him, knuckles taut white, right across the cheekbone. Time Lords are all on equal footing in terms of strength, even if she doesn't look it very much. Primitive violence should be beneath such an elevated species as theirs, but Gallifrey still had an army and they are still fighters.

The Master reels back from the force, and before he can recover, she takes another quick step, grabs him by the jacket lapel, and punches him again across the jaw just for good measure. Someone is shouting. It might be her. He stumbles, she grabs him as tightly as the rage that compels her, and pushes him back. The water splashes beneath their feet and dampens their legs. Her physical form is moving faster than her mind and she pushes him further.

“—keeping secrets from me just to spite me, hiding from me when we’re all that’s left, I thought you’d left me with Saxon because you weren’t brave enough to risk your life, but now I know—”

Furious fingers dig into his hair and it’s only once the Master’s knees hit the submerged sands that she presses the pad of her water dampened thumb against his temple and admits:

_I thought I’d lost you for good._

Her own legs give out and the water eats away at the rest of her trousers. Her grip loosens, she’s gasping for breath and waits for him to return the blows. Instead, the Master buries a hand into her hair as well and touches their foreheads together. 

He’s smiling, like an idiot. The left of his face is already starting to bruise and he laughs through a split lip. It takes a moment for her to realise she’s laughing too.

_Been a while since you punched me that hard. I missed it._

His grin grows madder. The Master approves.

And finally the Doctor returns.

Her smile dies, the connection shatters, and she recoils to her feet. She takes a few steps away, all too aware of the water seeping through her clothes and Gallifrey still burning through the Boundary and _Ryan—_

She grabs the Master by the arm and lifts him out of the water, dragging him back on shore. He laughs at her.

“Why are you here? Do you know about the Cybermen? What is Gallifrey doing here?”

“It’s a wormhole, Doctor,” the Master says, in that same condescending tone, and they’re back to being enemies again. “And one that’s just a little bit sentient. It sends you to wherever you’ll feel safest.”

“Don’t lie to me,” she snaps. They’re back on the dry sands and the damp clothes are starting to get to her, but she refuses to look at their human audience. “What do you know about the Cybermen?”

“I haven’t lied to you before in this incarnation—”

“You lied about O.”

“Besides that. The Cybermen just want what they always want; to convert whatever lifeforms there are and to move on. But, judging by his presence,” the Master gives a quick wave to the Doctor’s blind spot, “I’d say you brought at least one of your humans to a Cyberwar. Shouldn’t you know better by now?”

Her free hand curls into a fist again and the Master’s eyes widen with glee and—

“Doctor, _please_ stop!”

Ryan takes her fisted hand and she can barely feel his touch, even though he’s pulling her away from the Master with all the strength a human has. She releases the Time Lord’s arm and lets Ryan guide her back a few steps. He’s saying something else, something comforting, something about how the Master clearly wants her angry and she shouldn’t give into it, but all that pulses through her is rage.

Anger; she’s been so angry lately. Ever since the Master showed up. No, since the recon Dalek. Or maybe since her very birth. Maybe she’d never stopped being angry.

She breathes. Ryan is still patting her back, but he’s addressing the Master. In her peripheral, Ko Sharmus and Ethan are alarmed. The Master’s smile has vanished at facing a human. She breathes.

Ryan’s relaying the information about the Cyber war carrier, about how there are still human survivors on board and how it’s headed for them and how it’s really in the Master’s best interest to stop antagonising her and help them because even if he can’t be converted, the Cybermen will still try to kill him.

She wants to tell him to shut up, that the Master would ally with anything and has allied with the Cybermen before, but all she can think of is how _familiar_ Ryan sounds right now.

“And why do you think I’d help you?” the Master asks. “I’m just here for the Doctor. It doesn’t matter to me if the rest of humanity dies here.”

All the rage still simmers and she wants to shove him back into the water, push his head under, watch him struggle through his respiratory bypass, until the golden light of regeneration blends into the dark sea, but Ryan seizes her shoulder and holds her back and she lets humanity temper her fury.

(It won’t occur to her for a while, that this is the longest and closest this body’s allowed a human to touch her.)

“Because,” Ryan hands are shaking against her, but his words are steady, “the Doctor really cares for us, she’ll do whatever she can to try and save us, and she won’t be a lot of use to you if she’s dead.”

And just like that, all her rage melts away and and morphs into something just as familiar as Ryan’s tone and words. Something she’s lived with for many lives. Something she still hasn’t overcome.

“No, forget him,” she speaks at last, and pulls herself out of Ryan’s grasp. Her words are cold and very far away. “He won’t help us and I won’t die. I can handle this on my own—”

“But _why_ , Doctor?!” Ryan turns on her and he sounds like a child and she forgets that that’s because he _is_. “Why do you always have to do everything alone, Doctor? You won’t even let Yaz or Grandad or me help you—”

“Because I don’t _want_ your help, Ryan!”

The words leave her mouth and her teeth click shut but it’s all too late. Ryan stares at her and deep brown eyes soften in meaningless human understanding.

“Never mind it all,” she says, turning away. “The Cyber carrier is coming in, I need to think of a plan. Ko Sharmus, I need to take another look at your communications, and any other sort of electronics you might have.”

Ko Sharmus, gratefully, inclines his head and starts back up the hill. Ethan and Ryan trotter on afterwards and the Doctor counts her steps. She gets seven steps in when the Master calls out to her.

“Before you die, Doctor,” he says, as though death has ever stuck for either of them, “tell me: where do you think our regenerations come from?”

She stops and turns to her oldest enemy, stood against the ashes of their planet. His mania is gone again, only sombreness remaining. In her peripheral, Ryan seems torn between interest and disdain at the last ditch attempt to keep the Doctor’s attention.

“Rassilon,” she says simply. “Or Omega. Or that other one.”

“And they were all liars, remember?”

“Of course. History is written by the future.” The Doctor frowns. “If you won’t tell me now why you did what you did, then you can come back in an hour.”

Come back, and see if I’ve won or lost.

“The Timeless Child,” the Master says, “is the origin of regeneration. Its being lives on in each of us. It was a lifeform from beyond this universe, and the Time Lords used it to—”

Something shimmers above and she hisses a curse, looking up to the vibrant blue sky. It wavers in a haze of energy, then a streak of black breaks through the light and coalesces into a massive ship.

The Doctor scrambles down the sand, seizes the Master’s hand, and tugs him back up the hill. The Boundary shuts and Gallifrey vanishes.

“Storytime later,” she snarls, feeling the bones of his knuckles crush together in her grip, “you’re helping _me_ now.”

The Master laughs and the only thing stopping her from punching him again is that she doesn’t have the time to carry his dead weight back to the hut.

She has a plan, which is enough to get her to the plan after that, and the plan after that. She has no idea where the plan ends, but given she managed to get through Plan A and B with only some distress, it’s a good sign that she can make C, D, and E work too.

Plan A was activating the security system to barricade all the entryways, including fortifying the way to the flight deck, buying Yaz and Graham and the other humans time to follow through with Plan B: setting the ship to orbit around the planet a number of times so no one could disembark. Plan C is to repurpose the emergency warp field to deposit a bunch of very organic humans without a specific exit teleport.

“Oh great,” Graham’s humour crackles over the rudimentary communications, “will we end up stuck in space again?”

Perched on the open window that overlooks the sea and the Boundary, the Master makes a show of mouthing, ‘Again?’. The Doctor ignores him.

“Ko Sharmus, do you have a map of this planet?”

The guardian offers her a basic map of the area. Many places are empty. Of course it was, why would a human need anything besides the immediate region? The Doctor clenches her teeth and grabs sheets of paper and a pencil to start scribbling calculations.

“Ryan, Ethan, hold this for me,” she hands them each a page, then another. “Pin that there,” she says, pointing to various parts of the hut.

“She’s calculating a trajectory for you, if it makes you feel better, she hasn’t gotten it wrong yet,” the Master hops off the window sill to speak into the microphone. The Doctor shoves him aside.

“Was that the Master?!”

“He’s not the problem right now, Yaz,” the Doctor replies, shoving a page into Ryan’s hand and bending his arm upwards. “Hold that there.”

“Why am I holding it?” Ryan asks incredulously.

“Do _you_ know how to calculate spatiotemporal coordinates from a regional map that’s only been charted on foot and doesn’t even account for continental or planetary drift? No offence, Ko Sharmus, your penmanship is lovely, though.”

The Master opens his mouth to say something aggravating, but the formulae finally click together in her brain and she snatches up the microphone and rattles off coordinates.

“And uh, what if this all goes wrong?” one of the other passengers who isn’t Yaz or Graham asks.

“Her coordinates are fine, but if the teleport fails to process all of your organic parts you will likely end up bisected or more with some parts of your body still stuck on the ship,” the Master inputs helpfully. “So please keep your arms and legs inside the teleport at all times.”

“Ignore him,” the Doctor orders. “He’s just riling you up.”

“And where do the coordinates lead?” Ethan asks.

“I’m dumping them in the water,” the Doctor says. “At a low enough altitude that they won’t be injured. I can’t be certain of how fast this planet rotates or orbits so the water is the best place.”

“But won’t that activate the Boundary?” Ryan says.

“Yeah, that’s why they’re currently orbiting the planet, the Boundary will activate but they’ll be able to get away from it before the Cybermen dock. If the Master is telling the truth—”

“I am.”

“—then Cybermen can’t activate the Boundary. The wormhole is semi-sentient, it projects wherever you feel safest, and Cybermen don’t have the concept of safety because they don’t have the power to fear. They won’t be able to cross.”

“But Ashad,” Yaz interjects. “He’s still not all Cyberman yet, he could activate it, couldn’t he?”

“Yeah, and I’ll deal with him, eventually,” the Doctor says, stepping away from the desk towards the window sill the Master had been occupying. “Now, are you all standing in the teleportation field?”

“I think so,” a tinny voice that isn’t Yaz or Graham’s says. “Am I gonna get my arm chopped off if I’m in the wrong place?”

“No,” she says, just as the Master answers “Yes.”

The Doctor grabs some decorative rock off of Ko Sharmus’ shelf and throws it at the Master’s face. She doesn’t care if he catches it.

“Sorry Ko Sharmus,” she says quickly, “And no, you’ll be fine as long as you’re inside the glowy lines.”

“All right fellas, let’s pack ourselves in like sardines.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, you know like—never mind.”

“Okay, now,” the Doctor peers through the window overseeing the Boundary. “On my mark… Get set… Now!”

The communications crackle and she holds her breath, staring out at the blur of black over the boundary. Then, a mass of tiny dark spots appear, high in the air, and careen down towards the water. Above them, far up into the atmosphere, the ship continues on its projected course around the planet, and heads towards the other horizon.

She hops through the window instead of taking the door.

Yaz and Graham smell of Ko Sharmus’ alkaline water and Cybertech teleportation static. They’d probably feel warmer if she weren’t hugging them directly after they fell into an ocean and dragged themselves out of it. Graham splits off first from the hug to embrace Ryan, and then swaps places with Yaz. They’re human and fragile and cold to touch, but they’re all alive and she is never going to put them through this again.

She cuts the reunion short to order the humans through the Boundary. The Cybermen will regain control over the ship soon, and everyone needs to get through so the Boundary won’t open up when the carrier returns. 

The Boundary opens in a brilliant violet, and the Doctor lets out a breath when it shows a green and yellow planet. Not Gallifrey. The Master gives an intentional huff, as though to point out he had been telling the truth after all, but she doesn’t look at him. Together, the survivors of the war pass through the wormhole, and vanish, to live on and carry on the legacy of humanity.

Ko Sharmus seems surprised when she steps behind him before the Boundary can latch on to her, and beckons him onwards.

“But,” he hobbles a few steps over to the water, “how will you leave?” he asks.

“I’ll figure a way out,” she says. “I’m rather good at that.”

Someone chuckles behind her. She ignores the Master again. Ko Sharmus eyes them all, but nods himself and ambles on towards the Boundary. He wades through the water, the sea helping his old frail body along, until he passes through portal and it transports him away.

The Doctor steps back, once again. The Boundary shimmers, and the green-and-yellow planet turns green-and-blue instead, with a very familiar geography.

“Now you three,” she says bluntly, and her humans turn around to face her, refusal on their lips. She doesn’t budge. “I can’t have you staying here. It’s far too dangerous.”

“No offence, Doc,” Graham begins, his voice level but firm. “But I think Yaz and I fared worse not being around you.”

“Graham’s right,” Yaz adds, “we almost died out there without you. And you and Ryan were…”

“We just stole a Cybership and the Doctor piloted us here. Ashad showed up as a hologram but it was—”

“See!” Yaz exclaims. “We’re safest with you, Doctor. And we’re not just going to leave you here to fight alone.”

“I’m not alone,” the Doctor says, gesturing to where the Master is watching a few feet away, looking deeply amused by the theatrics. “And trust me when I say he wouldn’t let me die here.”

“He tried to kill you before!”

“Yeah, because he was the one killing me, and I still got away. I know the Master and I know the Cybermen and I’ve got a plan but that doesn’t involve you.”

“We’re adults,” Yaz persists, “we can make our own choices, can’t we?”

“No,” the Doctor says. “No, you can’t. Not here. Not today. The Boundary will take you home—”

“Then you’ll have to carry us through yourself,” Ryan says, crossing his arms. “And I know you can’t. Either of you. The place you feel safest is _your_ home, not Earth.”

The Doctor takes a step back. She stares at him. Then to Yaz, and Graham, and back to Ryan. 

So human, so _stupid_ , that they think they knew better. She taught them too well, and she wasn’t even trying.

Plan E, then.

“Fine,” she says and she sighs, her shoulders falling. “You can stay, but…”

She looks at each of them again, projecting as much sincerity and vulnerability as she can.

“I don’t think this body really likes touching people,” the Doctor says. “But I’d really like to hug you guys right now, before we get to work.”

The fam look to each other, and Yaz breaks ranks first. She engulfs the Doctor in a warm hug, and the Doctor returns the gesture, arms over hers, fingers resting on the back of Yaz’s shoulders. 

Yaz, Graham, Ryan… they deserved better than this. 

“I’m really sorry,” she says, pulling back and pressing her fingers against Yaz’s face.

“Doctor, no—!” Ryan realises first.

Not a mind wipe, just a cheap knockout trick. It never feels good to use it, though. It’s mental manipulation, it’s an assault, if not an outright betrayal of trust. And it always feels dirty, overriding another’s free will, when they can’t even fight back.

Yaz goes limp in her arms, a sudden dead weight, and the Doctor rests her prone on the sand. Graham and Ryan grab at one another, torn between checking on Yaz and fearing for themselves. She’s done it now.

“Please,” she begs. “Please just take her and go. You can hate me all you want and that’s fine, but I can’t watch you die. Not again.”

“Doctor,” Graham says, and the full name breaks her hearts. “We’re sorry, too.”

Ryan’s eyes flicker over her shoulder and she is always too _slow_.

Deep brown eyes bore into her, and the Master pushes her into oblivion.

After all, they learned those tricks from each other.

“—is she standing like that?”

“Old Gallifreyan technology. Light compressed into a tangible forcefield. They used to use these as torture devices.”

“What?”

“I’m joking. We have much more efficient methods than forcing someone to stand for hours.”

Her eyes open to beams of light that turn into rings that turn into—

The Doctor jolts, but she’s already standing and there is a soft but persistent energy prodding at all sides of her body, trapping her in place. She shakes her head the pressure bounces across the sides of her face. 

Outside of the rings, Ryan is sat on some rickety chair, while Graham is looking around the room in discomfort. Yaz is staring directly at her, not quite glaring, just deeply upset.

It’s an interrogation room, and she’s the suspect.

“You brought them to Gallifrey,” she says, looking away from her humans. “You brought them _here_?”

“Yeah,” the Master stalks around his apparent prize. “End of the universe, totally desolate, far away from the Cyber army. Really, it’s the safest place for them.”

“And if Ashad gets to the Boundary? If he opens it up and escapes to some other part of the galaxy and converts more lifeforms?” She wants to strain against her binds, but that’s the real pain of this cage. Nowhere to move. No ability to move. It was just her and the sheer force of light.

“Have you forgotten you’re a Time Lord?” the Master scowls, a hand on his hip and disdain in his eyes. “You’re on Gallifrey. You can time travel to when we left and stop him.”

She still tries to grab the rings indignantly. The pressure stops her.

“Mate, can you let her out already?” Ryan asks, looking deeply uncomfortable.

“Why did you trick me?” Yaz asks at last. Her eyes are wavering in their sockets. She looks about to cry or yell and the Doctor would deserve the pain of either.

“I’m sorry,” she begins—

“No, shut up,” Yaz says, and the Doctor does. “Do you think we’re so stupid we want to stay because we don’t know what risk we’re at? Do you think because we’re human and we’re not as, as clever or as _brilliant_ as you, that we don’t know what we’re signing up for?”

“That’s not—”

“That is exactly how you see us,” Yaz snaps, raw and human and _betrayed_. “Maybe you don’t think we’re stupid but you definitely don’t see us as your friends. That’s why you hid so much from us and why you don’t tell us anything; because _you don’t trust us_.”

“I do trust you—”

“Then stop making our decisions for us! Stop pushing us away! If you trust us you should respect our choices to stay and help you—”

“It’s not that simple, Yaz,” her voice and her frustration rises just a bit, enough to supercede the human. “I’ve been through this before. That’s why I’m telling you to go, because you’re not safe around the Cybermen.”

“We’re safest where you are—”

“No, you are _not_!” she finally yells, and her humans flinch. “You are not safest with me! I can’t protect you from everything. I can try but I can’t always keep you safe. I’m a Time Lord, one of the last, I can see the web of time and threads of what could be and what can change and when I look at you I can see where you might die and where your lives could end and I know if you stay with me at this moment I might never, ever see you again.”

Her legs would give out if they could. This body still doesn’t do crying, after all this pain, she’s only got misty eyes so far.

Her humans are stunned quiet, now. She can’t look away.

“I’m sorry. I really am. I wish we’d met at a different time. I really wanted to trust you, it’s what the Doctor would have done. But I’m… I’m not even supposed to exist, now. I keep losing people. I keep losing battles. I keep losing… everything.”

Why? Why is it always her choice? Why is she the one who has to make all the hard decisions? Why does the universe still need a Doctor? What is she supposed to do?

“Doctor…” Ryan murmurs.

She inhales, shakily. Is that still her name? Her eyes close. The Master’s mind hums beside her.

“I’m tired,” she says out loud. “I’m really, _really_ tired.”

 _Save my friends,_ she says intangibly, _and I’ll stay with you. If you want me to._

And the Master reaches out to the humans, and overrides their free will.

They’ll find themselves home unpacking their belongings, with a letter on their beds. It’ll be an apology, and a promise. She’ll come back for tea, a year from now. She might not look like herself anymore, but she’ll be better, and if they want to hear what she kept from them and why, she’ll tell them. The letter will only be written if she’s still the Doctor, so if they receive it, things will be all right.

She will be all right.

The luminary cage fizzles out, and she collapses to her knees. The free air feels strange around her body, and the Master immediately steps in to hold her against his chest. She can hear his hearts beat, but he holds her close and it’s so gentle she begins to shake. 

“I don’t know what to do anymore,” she says. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“I know,” he says, and he presses his lips to her forehead and it’s _gentle_. “I know.”

They make contact and she flinches and grips onto his arm. There’s the instinctive urge to hide, to bury her feelings and vulnerabilities deep in the recesses of her mind, where the Master would have to fight her to reach. 

But she’s tired, very tired, and she knows the Master well. 

She doesn’t know what he sees in her head, or how he’ll interpret all her pain and uncertainty, but she’s letting him in, and letting him stay, and that’s a sign enough on her part. He’s hurt her before, she’s been hurt before, but she’s making a choice, and giving in.

“What do you need?” he asks, stroking her hair. 

She hesitates. She doesn’t know yet. She’s very tired. 

“I need... I need to be...” she closes her eyes. “I turned them into soldiers again. I turned them into me again. I didn’t mean to. I wanted to keep them away, I didn’t know what to do with them, but I didn’t want to be alone. I can’t be on my own again.”

Her words might have been nonsense without insight into her mind, but the Master knows her well too. 

“I need you to tell me what you need, my dear.”

“I need you... to keep me... away. From humanity. From the universe. Keep me... to yourself.”

Because he’s the only one she can trust, because she can’t ruin him any more than she already has, because he’s the only one who’s seen how dangerous she can be, and because when they’re each too clever to be unwillingly imprisoned, it means the universe if they let the other pretend. 

“That’s quite the role reversal,” he says, caressing her cheek. The Master is gentle, even if he’s just a bit mocking, and it almost hurts. “Am I supposed to keep you somewhere, like you did?”

“I don’t know,” she says, “I don’t care. But we need to deal with the Cybermen…”

“Can I burn them?” 

There’s an eagerness to his voice. That’s the balance between them. They are equals, and even at her lowest, her approval still means more to him than any sort of fight.

“I won’t stop you,” she says. “I don’t think I’m the Doctor anymore.”

There’s a light in the Master’s eyes and a pressure around her mind, one that would sometimes repulse her, but now she can only find it comforting. It’s possessive and demanding and suffocating and she doesn’t mind it all.

The Master pulls her in for another hug, and kisses her forehead again. As though she’s precious to him, as though he wants to keep her safe, as though they love each other.

“You don’t need to worry about a thing, now, Theta. You don’t need to decide anymore.”

If it were a real, absolutely true statement, it would be awful. If it were a real, absolutely true decision, the universe might just shatter to pieces. If it were a real, absolutely true promise, they could bring the Time Lords to extinction in mere moments.

But it isn’t real, only pretend, and they are both very good liars.

So she lets him keep her. And they will pretend.

**Author's Note:**

> ~~there will be a follow up story to this that crosses over with Class, but I wanted to split the backstory into a separate fic on its own just in case.~~
> 
> i have like, zero rights okay. anyway i'm on tumblr as @thoscheian if you wanna shame me.
> 
>  **Edit 3/3/20:** I LIED. The finale came and wrecked me. I’m now turning this into a multi chapter fic to cope. They’re gonna be tender but OH MAN we need a lot more content warnings. I’ll talk about it in the next chapter.


End file.
